“I don’t have any delusions about our chances, and yet I don’t think it’s impossible,” Spitzer said in an interview at Senate Majority Leader Lisa Brown’s farewell party on Wednesday at the Martin Woldson Theater at the Fox. “It takes a leap of faith and just a little dose of magical thinking.”

Spitzer, 45, has had many jobs since he graduated from University High School in 1984, but he probably is best known as an independent filmmaker, who produced science fiction programming and short films, including the series “Dead of Night” which ran on a cable access channel in Spokane in the mid-1990s. And, yes, some of his work is thankfully available on YouTube. Here’s a Spokesman-Review story about “Dead of Night” from 1996.

Asked this week about his film work, Spitzer seemed a bit embarrassed by some of it, but he said he is proud of a 22-minute film he directed called “Shadows in the Dark.” That film is available for purchase on Amazon.

Spitzer, who has an English bachelor’s degree from Gonzaga University and master's from Eastern Washington University, said he became active in the local Democratic Party through his work in the Occupy movement and stepped up to challenge Parker only after it became clear that Democrats with more conventional candidate biographies would not come forward.